www.oxfordcollege.ac

From Canine Studies to Media Studies and Aromatherapy to Botany, Oxford College ODL is a leader in distance learning in the UK and beyond. Boasting over 25,000 students, Oxford College ODL offers courses that encompass GCSE, A-Level, Diploma and Degree level qualifications. Working on the ethos ‘education for all’ the college has students from every continent who range in age from 16 to 82. The scope of its courses and the span of its target market pose unique challenges for the college.

Traditional Advertising Doesn't Make The Grade

Historically Oxford College ODL promoted its courses through newspaper and magazine advertising. It produced television advertising campaigns and travelled to education fairs throughout the UK and North America. "We weren't really getting the results with traditional advertising", says the Director General of the college, "It was a question of talking to other people in education and doing my own research and coming across Google AdWords. Initially I set that up and I played around with it myself and even with my basic knowledge we started getting quite good results."

Competition Drives Innovation

Since the college's venture into online advertising other education providers have made similar moves. Oxford College ODL says "It is eight years since we began advertising online and competition is definitely fiercer. Between the amount of competitors in our field and the amount of resellers going after the same business, we would estimate competition has increased threefold." With these new challenges Oxford College ODL set about using AdWords in innovative ways to get its message across to potential students. The Google Display Network allows advertisers to have their ads shown on highly relevant sites across a vast network of web content reaching 76% of all unique internet users. An ad for a maths diploma, for instance, would appear on maths-specific websites or a more general higher-learning ad might appear on a graduate careers website. Oxford College ODL says "With the amount of competition, we found that the Display Network was another level of reaching our target audience."

The Homework Pays Off

Oxford College ODL began using traditional text ads and the success of this prompted the Director General to look at richer media like image ads to further attract users to OxfordCollege.ac. The aim of the content ads was both direct response, in terms of enrolment on the college website, and branding. "We were particularly happy with our conversions on the image ads", he says. The Display Network has grown to drive almost half of all conversions on OxfordCollege.ac with a cost-per-conversion significantly lower than traffic from Google search. Regarding the college's brand he says "Our reputation has been spread worldwide... AdWords has pushed our brand more so than any other form of advertising. Really when it comes down to value for money, our Google AdWords advertising is up at the top." He concludes "Without the help of Google we would not be the leaders in the field which we are now".